This shows that even when faced with overwhelming evidence, the Fish & Wildlife Service follows its own agenda.

The good news is the good guys will continue the fight, but on a different front.


http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,3...1839343,00.html

Preble's mouse to stay on endangered list

By The Associated Press

AP file
A Preble's meadow jumping mouse.

LAKEWOOD - The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today rejected a bid to take the Preble's meadow jumping mouse off the Endangered Species List.

The agency has been sued over its 1998 decision to list the mouse as a threatened species in Colorado and Wyoming and for designating 31,220 acres in the two states as critical mouse habitat.

"None of the available scientific information demonstrates that delisting the Preble's meadow jumping mouse is justified at this time," said Ralph Morgenweck, director of the agency's Mountain-Prairie region, based in Lakewood.

Less than an hour after the announcement, the state of Wyoming announced that it had filed its own petition to have the mouse taken off the list.

Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal cited research at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science that found the mouse is not genetically distinct. The state paid the museum $61,430 and the Fish and Wildlife Service contributed $20,000 for the research.

The Fish and Wildlife Service should "direct its scarce resources to an animal that actually needs protection and recovery," Freudenthal said.

The museum's lead researcher on the project, Rob Roy Ramey, was expected to release his report later today, spokeswoman Laura Holtman said. The findings say genetics and physical characteristics show the Preble's meadow jumping mouse is not distinct from a mouse generally found in northeastern Wyoming.

Jeremy Nichols, endangered species coordinator with Biodiversity Conservation Alliance in Laramie, said Wyoming's arguments were nothing more than "anti-federal government rhetoric" and did not consider all factors in determining whether the Preble's mouse is distinct.

Nichols said he was sure the Denver museum research was accurate, but "it's not the final word."

The mouse lives along streams in Colorado and Wyoming. Its status as a threatened species means landowners in mouse habitat have fewer building options or must set aside land to be protected.

The critical habitat designation covered 20,680 acres along 234 miles of rivers and streams in Douglas, Jefferson, Larimer and Teller counties in Colorado. In Wyoming, the area includes 10,540 acres on 125 miles of waterways in Albany, Converse, Laramie and Platte counties.

Earlier this year, the conservative Mountain States Legal Foundation of Lakewood filed suit in federal court in Wyoming, saying the decision to list the mouse was based on incomplete data.

Foundation President William Perry Pendley called the listing "the epitome of bad public policy and junk science." Fish and Wildlife has defended its handling of the mouse's protection, but agreed to review the listing after receiving petitions from Rep. Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo., and the Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation.

"The range of the species corresponds largely to the rapidly developing Front Range urban corridor" between Colorado Springs and Cheyenne, Wyo.," the agency said in today's decision. "The decline of the species is indicative of the decline of riparian habitat throughout the Front Range."

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I can tell you from experience that mice are not endangered. We have a ton of them around our house. They even take up residency in our motorhome. The next thing you know somebody is going to list the gopher as endangered and we have a ton of those critters infesting our yard and lawn.